He's a
convicted murderer who walked free after serving just two years of a life
sentence in the early 1970s. He went to federal prison twice on cocaine charges in the
1980s and 1990s, but he always had a profitable business waiting on the outside.

Now, the city is ready to resolve its
long battle with Wright. And the outcome could begin to compensate for what
Wright considers unfair treatment at Leonard's hands.

Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who isn't
running for re-election and says she wants to help the homeless, worked out a
deal to move the Right 2 Dream Too camp to a city-owned parking lot under an
onramp to the Broadway Bridge.

Wright, 67, says he can, and will, wait
for a fair deal. He wants a $2 million check, split four ways among his
business partners.

"I think they realize that I'm not done
fighting," Wright said of the city. "If they don't make a fair market value on
the property, this can go on and on for another 5-10 years."

He seems to
enjoy being an actor in Portland's latest political drama.

"It's going
to get more interesting from here," he predicted. "We've got the Pearl that
don't want the homeless. We've got the mayor, who gets donations and is heavily
endorsed in the Pearl. You've got Amanda Fritz, who isn't running and cares
about the homeless a little bit.

"And before it's all over,"
he said, chuckling, "they'll be at each other's throats."

The yellow store
sign

Michael Wright talks about how Right 2 Dream Too startedMichael Wright talks about how he first invited Right 2 Dream Too to move to his property at the base of the Chinatown gate. Wright spoke from a dive bar near where his former business, Cindy's Adult Bookstore, used to stand.

Wright says he came into the adult bookstore business in
the 1980s after a youth spent in an array of criminal pursuits.

Wright, who stands a stocky 5-foot-7 and still sports a full head of
hair, was the son of
a Portland pimp and a well-known Madame. Wright says he began working with a
team of professional burglars and safecrackers in the 1960s and 1970s and dabbled
as a pimp.

A jury convicted him in 1971 in the killing of a former
boxer with a long and violent criminal record, Carlos Mendoza, in what
prosecutors said was retribution for roughing up one of Wright's prostitutes.
Wright maintained his innocence, then and now. After his short time in prison,
which ended in 1973, the state also commuted his parole six years later. He
went on to success in Portland's cocaine trade.

In 1984, Wright teamed up with a man named Dan Cossette, a
man 19 years his senior who owned adult bookstores in Clackamas and downtown,
to buy Cindy's.

Before Cossette and Wright came along, ownership of the
business was passed from "criminal group to criminal group," said Ken Bauman, a
former Assistant U.S. Attorney who successfully prosecuted Wright in the 1980s
for drugs.

Cossette and Wright both went to prison on drug charges during
the years they ran the bookstore. But after Wright emerged from prison for a final
time in 1998, Cindy's didn't make the
radar of many Chinatown neighbors.

View full sizeThen-Commissioner Randy Leonard said his team of housing and fire inspectors found code violations at Cindy's Adult Bookstore.Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian

Bob Naito, from the
prominent family of Portland developers, recalled frequently visiting Good
Taste, a Chinese restaurant adjacent to the bookstore with his father, Bill.
Cindy's wasn't a nuisance, Naito said.

"I
did everything possible," Wright said, "to run that bookstore as clean as I
could."

Not everyone agreed.

Demolished

In
2007, Leonard, the city commissioner in charge of enforcement of building
codes, was on a mission to clean up dangerous buildings.

The
former firefighter had begun coordinated inspections involving building
inspectors, police and fire officials. Business owners called it "the Hit Squad,"
known for targeting – and ultimately closing – such downtown landmarks as the
Greek Cusina on Southwest Fourth Avenue and Southwest Washington Street.

Leonard's
team visited Cindy's in 2007. They found a number of violations, Leonard
recalls.

In
a recent interview, Leonard said he told Wright by phone that cooperating with
the city was probably his best course of action. Wright didn't appreciate that
he was putting the public and his employees at risk.

Wright
said that's not true. "I'd fix one thing and they'd come in and write up more,"
he said. The police harassed customers, his attorney later asserted in court,
parking cruisers in front of the store for hours with lights flashing.

Wright
was so frustrated that he asked Bauman, who sent him to prison in 1986, for
legal advice on fighting the city.

Ultimately
Wright's lawsuit against Leonard and a subsequent appeal were denied. City
officials told him to tear down his buildings or else they'd do it and then
bill him. Wright and Cossette chose to do it themselves.

View full sizeCommissioner Amanda Fritz began working on a settlement to move Right 2 Dream Too after she took over the Bureau of Development Services this year.Michael Lloyd/The Oregonian

With
the business gone, Wright couldn't generate money from the lot. He tried to
open a food cart pod in 2011 but was unsuccessful.

Wright
blamed Leonard.

"He used
the resources of this entire city to bring down my client, and he was
successful," Randal Acker, Wright's attorney, said of Leonard before U.S.
District Judge Anna Brown in February 2011.

But
Wright wasn't finished fighting.

R2D2

At
his wits' end, Wright floated an idea. As he recalls, it happened during an
interview with Oregon Public Broadcasting in 2011.

What
about a homeless camp?

A
group with ties to the Dignity Village homeless community in Northeast Portland
approached Wright to ask if he was serious.

Leonard retired from the City Council that
month. Commissioner Amanda Fritz took
over the building codes bureau in June and immediately started working on a way
to settle the lawsuit and relocate R2D2.

Mayor Charlie Hales wanted to move the homeless
campers off the prime location too. Hales and Patrick Quinton, head of the
Portland Development Commission, met with Wright on Aug. 15.

Hales postponed a vote on the plan in hopes that Williams
and others could find an alternative. They have until mid-December.

Wright has an incentive to bring the saga to a close. He
says he wants someone to pay him if R2D2 stays. He called $7,500 a month fair,
and he'd donate half to the homeless.

Wright says whatever happens, he won't come
out ahead. If the city buys the land from him and his partners, the proceeds
won't cover their lost earnings stretching back to 2008. It doesn't cover the
cost of demolishing the building either.

"How do I win?" Wright asked, citing his empty
gravel lot with $1 of rent coming in and $12,000 of taxes a year going out.

Leonard said Wright could have sold the land once the economy
rebounded instead of picking a fight with the city.

"If
he looked in the mirror," Leonard said, "he would find he's his own worst
enemy."

Wright figures he's got a decade of living left.

Despite his "bumpy ride" of a life, Wright said he has few
regrets. "I live pretty comfortably with
myself," he said.

He is mostly retired, with
one remaining business, an adult video store in Vancouver. Once he sells the
R2D2 site, he can sell the Vancouver store, too.

Then he can start a new life, he said, in Costa Rica, far away from the city,
which he called a thorn in his side for decades. "I won't bother them anymore,
and maybe they'll stop bothering me."